Menu

All about guitar gear

I’ve actually finished that album

Questioning yourself… all the time

When I started putting material together for an album, I had no idea what was actually coming my way. Playing in bands my entire life, I was used to the creative process in a group. Someone came up with a melody or a riff and then we started putting shit together. This also meant that all members decided on changes together and approved the final version once it felt right.

Doing all that on your own is a complete different game, and it took me quite some time to figure that out. Because no one sits beside you and says “hmm, maybe we should lower that tempo a little”, “hey, let’s play this part half-time”, “why don’t we put the chorus part behind the intermediate blablabla”! In other words, it takes longer until you get that feeling that something sounds right or that it sounds the way you intended it to sound like.

Then of course, since I don’t have the luxury to spend my entire day in my home studio to work on stuff, you’ll need to find the time to move forward with the recording process. There’s work, you wanna have a social life, you also need a break from work in between…so you start planning out times to be in the studio. But what if in exactly that time, you’re not inspired at all? You just can’t get that guitar part right! Your stupid computer won’t load that VST preset you put together the week before etc. You cannot exactly plan to be creative or in good shape for a studio session…well, maybe you can if your level of experience allows it and you crush every take anyways. 🙂

Getting sick about something you love

At some point I started to get sick every time I even remotely thought about finishing that album. I was standing in front of that big pile of music which needed to be organized, arranged, re-recorded, mixed etc. and my first thought was “shit, I am never going to get that finished”.

I eventually figured out a way to put things together and started listening to rough mixes. That’s where your brain starts to fuck with you again! Is it good enough? And I am not only referring to the mix, but also the music, the composition, the arrangements…and that was the moment when something really beautiful happened, out of nowhere: I stopped thinking about it and started feeling what I had done. I remembered why I wrote those songs and what they reflect, what kind of feelings made me write those melodies and riffs. Now it seemed so easy to do a few changes, re-arrange a few parts and finalize it. It felt right!

My motivation to release this album was never to become rich & famous (which is also impossible due to the current situation of the music industry and the type of music I write). For me this album is self-therapy! I went through a lot of changes in the past 7 years, isolated myself from everyone, saw my mother becoming seriously sick, didn’t know if this world was actually for me, doubted everything everybody said…but also found new ways, new love and happiness to some extend. That’s what “Path to Happiness:Isolated” is all about.